The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
US oil giant may exit North Sea after offer
Price: Firm will not sell on the cheap
US oil giant ConocoPhillips said yesterday it had received an “unsolicited offer” for its UK North Sea portfolio.
It confirmed it was marketing the assets but suggested it was not prepared to sell on the cheap.
The firm, which operates the Britannia field, is one of several international oil companies to have been linked with an exit from the North Sea this year, including Chevron and Marathon Oil.
Chevron recently put its entire central North Sea portfolio up for sale and agreed to divest its 40% operated interests in the Rosebank development to Equinor.
ConocoPhillips’s assets are likely to spark interest among newer, privateequity-backed companies which have been buying mature fields from majors.
The firm announced in July it would sell 16.5% of its equity in the Clair Field to BP, leaving it with 7.5%.
At the time, Luke Parker, analyst at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie, said ConocoPhillips’ total withdrawal from the UK seemed “likely to follow”.
Mr Parker said the company had “other priorities closer to home”, namely in US shale oil and Alaska.
ConocoPhillips plans to lay off about 450 workers across the UK, announced in April, also cast doubts on the firm’s commitment to the North Sea.
The redundancies are a consequence of its decision to halt production from a number of southern North Sea fields served by the Theddlethorpe gas terminal in Lincolnshire.
However, the company has continued to explore in the UK North Sea. Earlier this year, it revealed it had an ongoing multi-well development and exploration drilling programme in the central North Sea J-Area, which consists of the Jade, Jasmine, Joanne and Judy fields.
It awarded a contract to energy service firm WorleyParsons to provide a range of services for a subsea tieback project offshore UK.
Bloomberg reported yesterday that ConocoPhillips would invite bids for its remaining UK assets by the end of the year.
A ConocoPhillips spokeswoman said: “ConocoPhillips is marketing its UK assets after receiving an unsolicited offer.
“If offers do not meet the company’s expectations for value, ConocoPhillips will retain the assets. We won’t comment on any further details about the process.” Scottish oil firm Cairn Energy has agreed to sell a stake in a North Sea field to a mystery bidder.
Edinburgh-headquartered Cairn will farm out a 40% non-operated interest in the Chimera prospect.
The firm currently owns 100% of Chimera, thought to contain 154 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
Plans are afoot to drill a well on the field, located east of Shetland, in the second half of 2019.
A spokeswoman for Edinburgh-based Cairn said the company could not identify the buyer until the deal had been completed and approved by regulators. Meanwhile, Cairn’s first operated exploration well in the UK North Sea has come up dry.
The Ekland prospect “failed to encounter commercial hydrocarbons and has been plugged and abandoned”, the firm said yesterday.
The field is located near the Montrose area of the central North Sea.
Cairn holds a 45% stake in Ekland, Zennor Petroleum has 30% and Petrogas International 25%.
But Cairn is one of the partners in the Agar-Plantain discovery, which was also announced yesterday.
“ConocoPhillips has received an unsolicited offer for its portfolio”